To Laura

For my daughter, who will always be the best part of my story.

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing)

CORS on webMethods API Gateway: How to configure, test, and troubleshoot CORS is one of those things that’s invisible when it’s right and maddening when it’s wrong. If you’re exposing APIs through IBM’s webMethods API Gateway and serving a browser-based frontend, this guide will show you how to set up CORS correctly, verify it with curl, and fix common issues fast. TL;DR Enable the CORS policy on your API (or as a Global Policy) in API Gateway. Explicitly allow the frontend Origin, HTTP methods, and custom headers your app uses. Let the gateway handle preflight (OPTIONS) requests and don’t require authentication for them. Test with curl using -H “Origin: …” and use -X OPTIONS for preflight checks. Watch out for credentials + “*” mismatch, missing allowed headers, or upstream proxies blocking OPTIONS. What CORS is (and isn’t) What it is: A browser-enforced security model that restricts cross-origin HTTP calls made by frontend code (e.g., https://app.example.com calling https://api.example.com). What it isn’t: A server-to-server restriction. curl, Postman, and backend services aren’t blocked by CORS. Simple vs preflight: Simple requests: GET/HEAD/POST with limited headers may not trigger a preflight. Preflight: For other methods (PUT/PATCH/DELETE), custom headers (Authorization, X-API-Key, etc.), or content types, the browser sends an OPTIONS request first to check what’s allowed. Key headers ...

June 15, 2025 · 7 min · 1309 words · me

Identity and Federation

Identity and Federation: A Practical Guide for Developers Identity and federation sit at the heart of modern authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO). Whether you’re integrating with an enterprise IdP, adding social login, or securing APIs, understanding how identities flow across systems will save you time and prevent subtle security bugs. This article gives you a clear mental model, practical implementation tips, and code examples you can adapt today. Why identity and federation matter Users want one login across apps (SSO). Organizations need central policy, governance, and audit. Developers want to avoid storing passwords and reinventing auth. Security depends on well-understood trust boundaries and token handling. Identity federation lets one domain (the Identity Provider, or IdP) authenticate a user, then assert that identity to another domain (the Service Provider/Relying Party) using standard protocols and signed tokens. ...

June 8, 2025 · 8 min · 1520 words · me

Kafka Protocol, AsyncAPI, and Event‑Driven Architecture

Kafka Protocol, AsyncAPI, and Event‑Driven Architecture: A Practical Guide If you’re building reactive, loosely-coupled systems, you’ll encounter three recurring themes: event-driven architecture (EDA), Apache Kafka, and AsyncAPI. This article ties them together. We’ll start with EDA fundamentals, peek under Kafka’s hood (protocol, delivery semantics, consumer groups), and show how AsyncAPI helps you design and govern your event contracts—backed by code examples you can run. Why Event‑Driven Architecture? Event-driven architecture is an approach where services communicate by publishing and consuming events (facts about things that happened), instead of making synchronous calls. ...

June 1, 2025 · 9 min · 1875 words · me

Apache Kafka

Apache Kafka: A Practical Guide for Developers If you build data-intensive systems, you’ve likely heard of Apache Kafka—a distributed platform for high-throughput, low-latency, fault-tolerant event streaming. This article covers Kafka’s core concepts from topics and partitions to producer/consumer mechanics, leader election, replication, discovery, and the evolution from ZooKeeper to KRaft. It’s written for intermediate developers who want clear, practical explanations with a few code examples. Note: You wrote “KafkaE”; this article assumes Apache Kafka. ...

May 25, 2025 · 7 min · 1348 words · me

101 Sites Every System Architect and Developer Should Know

101 Sites Every System Architect and Developer Should Know Whether you’re designing systems, building APIs, or keeping services healthy in production, having the right links bookmarked saves time and reduces risk. This curated list groups 101 essential sites by category—covering standards, cloud, CI/CD, infra-as-code, monitoring, data, security, and more. Each entry includes a short “why it matters.” Tip: Don’t try to adopt everything. Pick one or two per category that fit your stack and maturity, then expand as your needs grow. ...

May 18, 2025 · 6 min · 1162 words · me

101 Business Applications Developers and Architects Should Know (2025 Edition)

101 Business Applications Developers Should Know (2025 Edition) Whether you’re building a startup or modernizing an enterprise, your stack isn’t just code—it’s the ecosystem of tools that powers your product, people, and processes. This guide curates 101 essential applications across databases, productivity accelerators, security, networking, analytics, and more. Each entry is concise, developer-focused, and battle-tested in real-world teams. How to use this list: Skim by category to fill gaps in your stack. Compare tools that overlap (e.g., CI/CD, BI, CRM) to fit your scale and workflow. Look for integration patterns: the best stacks reduce context switching. Databases (1–8) PostgreSQL — Open-source relational database with strong SQL features, extensions (PostGIS), and reliability. MySQL — Widely adopted relational database; great for OLTP and LAMP stacks. MongoDB — Document-oriented NoSQL DB for flexible schemas and rapid iteration. Microsoft SQL Server — Enterprise-grade RDBMS with strong tooling and BI integrations. Oracle Database — Robust RDBMS for mission-critical enterprise workloads. Redis — In-memory data store for caching, queues, and low-latency operations. Elasticsearch — Distributed search and analytics engine (often paired with Logstash/Beats). Apache Cassandra — Wide-column NoSQL DB built for high write throughput and availability. Developer Productivity & Collaboration (9–13) GitHub — Source hosting, pull requests, reviews, Actions, and ecosystem. GitLab — All-in-one DevOps platform (SCM, CI/CD, packages, security). Bitbucket — Git hosting with deep Jira integration and Pipelines. JetBrains IDEs — Language-specific IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm) for productivity. Visual Studio Code — Extensible, lightweight editor with a massive plugin library. DevOps & CI/CD (14–18) Jenkins — Highly extensible CI server for custom pipelines and on-prem control. GitHub Actions — CI/CD tightly integrated with repos and GitHub ecosystem. CircleCI — Managed CI/CD with strong parallelism and ease-of-use. Argo CD — GitOps continuous delivery for Kubernetes. Azure DevOps — Boards, Repos, Pipelines, and Artifacts for end-to-end DevOps. Cloud & Infrastructure (19–23) Amazon Web Services (AWS) — Broadest IaaS/PaaS with global footprint. Microsoft Azure — Enterprise-friendly cloud with strong AD/Office 365 ties. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) — Data/ML-forward cloud with managed services. HashiCorp Terraform — Declarative IaC for provisioning across clouds. Kubernetes — Container orchestration standard for scaling workloads. Security (IAM, AppSec, SIEM, Secrets) (24–31) Okta — Workforce identity and SSO with lifecycle management. Auth0 — Customer identity platform for auth, MFA, and social logins. HashiCorp Vault — Centralized secrets management and encryption. CrowdStrike Falcon — Endpoint detection and response (EDR). Cloudflare — WAF, CDN, DDoS protection, Zero Trust access. Snyk — SCA/SAST for dependencies, containers, and IaC. OWASP ZAP — Open-source DAST for runtime security testing. Splunk — SIEM and observability for security analytics and incident response. Networking & Observability (32–37) Datadog — Unified metrics, logs, traces, and APM with easy agents. Prometheus — Open metrics and alerting with pull-based scraping. Grafana — Visualization and dashboards across diverse data sources. OpenTelemetry — Standardized traces/metrics/logs for vendor-neutral telemetry. New Relic — APM and full-stack observability with strong visualizations. Wireshark — Protocol analyzer for deep network troubleshooting. Data & Analytics (BI/ELT/Stream) (38–43) Apache Kafka — Distributed event streaming platform and durable log. Apache Airflow — Workflow orchestration for data pipelines. dbt — SQL-based transformation and testing for analytics engineering. Fivetran — Managed connectors for ELT into your warehouse. Tableau — Interactive BI dashboards for business consumption. Power BI — Microsoft’s BI suite integrated with Office/Dynamics. CRM & Sales (44–48) Salesforce Sales Cloud — Market-leading CRM with extensive ecosystem. HubSpot CRM — Easy-to-use CRM with native marketing/sales tools. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales — CRM tied to Microsoft stack and ERP. Pipedrive — Pipeline-focused CRM for SMBs and startups. Zoho CRM — Affordable CRM with broad app suite integrations. Marketing Automation (49–52) HubSpot Marketing Hub — Inbound marketing, email, workflows, and analytics. Marketo — Enterprise marketing automation for complex campaigns. Mailchimp — Email marketing with templates, automation, and reporting. Segment — Customer data platform (CDP) to collect, unify, and route events. Finance & Accounting (53–56) QuickBooks Online — SMB accounting with invoicing and bank feeds. Xero — Cloud accounting with strong UX and app marketplace. NetSuite — ERP/financials for growing and enterprise teams. Stripe — Payments API with billing, subscriptions, and fraud tooling. HR & People Ops (57–60) Workday — Enterprise HRIS, payroll, and talent management. BambooHR — HRIS for SMB with PTO, onboarding, and reporting. Gusto — Payroll, benefits, and HR tools for small to mid-size teams. Greenhouse — Applicant tracking system (ATS) for hiring workflows. Project & Product Management (61–65) Jira Software — Agile boards, backlogs, and release tracking. Asana — Project planning and collaboration with timelines and goals. Trello — Simple Kanban boards for lightweight workflows. Linear — Fast issue tracking for product teams with opinionated UX. Monday.com — Visual work management with automations and templates. Design & Prototyping (66–69) Figma — Collaborative UI design and prototyping in the browser. Sketch — Vector design for macOS with rich plugin ecosystem. Miro — Online whiteboarding for workshops, flows, and mapping. Balsamiq — Low-fidelity wireframing to iterate quickly. Customer Support & Success (70–73) Zendesk — Ticketing, help center, and omnichannel support. Intercom — In-app messaging, bots, and customer engagement. Freshdesk — Support suite with automation and knowledge base. Gainsight — Customer success platform for health scores and renewals. Automation & Integration (RPA/iPaaS) (74–78) Zapier — No-code automations connecting SaaS apps via triggers/actions. Make (Integromat) — Visual scenario builder for multi-step automations. n8n — Open-source workflow automation you can self-host. Apache NiFi — Dataflow automation for ingest, routing, and transformation. IBM Webmethods — Enterprise iPaaS and API integration. Document Management & eSign (79–81) Google Workspace (Drive/Docs) — Real-time docs, sheets, and storage. Microsoft 365 (SharePoint/OneDrive) — Enterprise document and collaboration suite. DocuSign — Electronic signatures and contract workflows. Communication & Meetings (82–84) Slack — Team chat with channels, apps, and workflow automation. Microsoft Teams — Chat, meetings, and files integrated with 365. Zoom — Reliable video meetings, webinars, and rooms. Endpoint & ITSM (85–88) Jira Service Management — ITSM for requests, incidents, and changes. ServiceNow — Enterprise ITSM/ITOM with strong process automation. Jamf Pro — Apple device management (macOS, iOS). Microsoft Intune — Endpoint and mobile device management at scale. Backup & Disaster Recovery (89–91) Veeam Backup & Replication — VM and cloud backup with granular restores. Acronis Cyber Protect — Backup plus endpoint protection. AWS Backup — Centralized backups for AWS services and on-prem via gateways. E-commerce & Payments (92–95) Shopify — Hosted storefront with extensible apps/payments. WooCommerce — WordPress-based ecommerce plugin with flexibility. Adyen — Global payments platform with risk tools and reporting. Square — POS and online payments for retail and SMB. CMS & Web Platforms (96–98) WordPress — Ubiquitous CMS with themes, plugins, and headless options. Contentful — Headless CMS for omnichannel content delivery. Webflow — Visual web design with production-grade hosting and CMS. API Management & Gateways (99–101) IBM API Gateway — High-performance, extensible API gateway (OSS/Enterprise). Apigee — Google Cloud API management for security, quotas, and analytics. AWS API Gateway — Managed gateway for REST/WebSocket APIs in AWS. Quick CI/CD Example: Build, Test, and Deploy on Push A minimal GitHub Actions workflow that runs tests, builds a Docker image, and deploys to Kubernetes. Adjust steps to match your stack. ...

May 11, 2025 · 7 min · 1461 words · me

Gladio - Fernando Pessoa

GLÁDIO Deu-me Deus o seu gládio, porque eu faça A sua santa guerra. Sagrou-me seu em honra e em desgraça, Às horas em que um frio vento passa Por sobre a fria terra. Pôs-me as mãos sobre os ombros e doirou-me A fronte com o olhar; E esta febre de Além, que me consome, E este querer grandeza são seu nome Dentro em mim a vibrar. E eu vou, e a luz do gládio erguido dá ...

May 4, 2025 · 1 min · 101 words · Fernando Pessoa

System Deployment

System Deployment: A Practical Guide for Developers System deployment is how you move your code from “it works on my machine” to serving real users safely, repeatably, and fast. Done well, deployments become boring: predictable, observable, and reversible. This guide covers the essentials—from packaging and pipelines to rollout strategies and post-deploy verification—so you can ship with confidence. What “Deployment” Really Means Deployment is the automated process of: Building a reproducible artifact (e.g., container image) Provisioning or updating infrastructure Configuring the runtime environment Releasing the new version with minimal risk Verifying, monitoring, and rolling back if needed Key principles: ...

April 27, 2025 · 8 min · 1664 words · Me

The 10 Most Common Software Vulnerabilities (and How to Prevent Them)

The 10 Most Common Software Vulnerabilities (and How to Prevent Them) Shipping fast is great. Shipping safely is essential. This guide walks through ten high‑impact vulnerabilities developers see again and again (think SQL injection, XSS, and friends), with practical examples and prevention tips you can apply today. These closely align with the OWASP Top 10 and are written for intermediate developers who want clear, actionable guidance. 1) Injection (SQL/NoSQL/Command) What it is: Untrusted input ends up as executable code or commands. Variants include SQL, NoSQL, OS command, LDAP, and template injection. ...

April 20, 2025 · 8 min · 1538 words · Me

Security, Security and... Security

Practical Security for Developers: A Field Guide Security is a broad, moving target. This guide focuses on core concepts you’ll actually use: keys, hashes, signatures, certificates, TLS/SSL, authentication and authorization (including OAuth), firewalls, and practical tooling with OpenSSL and PGP. It’s aimed at intermediate developers who build and operate networked applications. Contents Security fundamentals (CIA, threat model) Cryptography building blocks Symmetric keys and ciphers Public-key cryptography Hashing and HMAC Digital signatures Digital certificates, Root CAs, and the chain of trust SSL/TLS and the TLS handshake Secure network protocols Authentication vs Authorization (OAuth, OIDC, RBAC) Firewalls and network security PGP and the web of trust Key management and secret handling Threats and mitigations OpenSSL and GPG quick recipes Checklists and common pitfalls Security fundamentals CIA triad: Confidentiality: prevent unauthorized disclosure (encryption). Integrity: prevent unauthorized modification (MACs, signatures). Availability: keep systems usable (redundancy, rate limits, DDoS protection). Threat modeling: identify assets, adversaries, entry points, trust boundaries, and mitigations (STRIDE: Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, DoS, Elevation). Cryptography building blocks Randomness: Use cryptographically secure RNGs for keys/nonces (e.g., /dev/urandom, crypto libraries). Keys: Symmetric (one key) vs Asymmetric (public/private pair). Primitives: Encryption: confidentiality. MAC/HMAC: integrity with shared secret. Signatures: integrity + origin with private key. Hash: fixed-size digest; no secret. Symmetric keys (how they work) You and the recipient share the same secret key. Fast and suitable for bulk data; used inside TLS after key exchange. Common algorithms/modes: ...

April 13, 2025 · 10 min · 2057 words · Me